University of Connecticut Athletics
August 14 Football Practice Update
8/14/2007 12:00:00 AM | Football
STORRS, Conn. (August 14, 2007) -- The University of Connecticut football team got back into the swing of things on Tuesday with a two-a-day practice session following an off day on Monday for its annual media day. The two practices were spaced well apart, the first coming at 8:10 a.m. and the second under the lights at 7:10 p.m. Both practices were held outside and in full pads.
In the morning, UConn started with punting. After 25 minutes of individual position group work, the Huskies worked on kickoff returns and performed inside run drills. UConn worked as a full team with its nickel packages before installing some more plays. Then it was back to work as a full team both in first-and-ten situations and, later, on escaping the end zone with live series starting on the Husky one yard line.
Punt return was also the order of the day for pre-practice in the shorter evening session. After 20 minutes apart as positional units, UConn worked on its kickoff coverage and later reconvened as a full squad for red zone work. UConn installed plays for 10 minutes before working as a team in a wide variety of down and distance scenarios. UConn capped the practice with two minute drill work in situations the required a touchdown and others where a field goal was needed.
"We're making progress," head coach Randy Edsall said. "Over all it was a good day. I like the fact that we got a lot of good quality work in on some of the special teams areas. We're starting to narrow down now the list of guys that we feel can go into the season and help us. That's what these practices are determining, who our two-deep is going to be and how many guys we need for special teams. We'll be narrowing that down all this week.
"We got the quarterback position straightened out this morning with Tyler Lorenzen starting. That will allow us to get used to those guys as unit. You could see a little bit more cohesiveness tonight as people get familiar with each other a little bit more and hearing the same voice. That's behind us and now we have some other positions that we'll have to decide on shortly as well. We've got some good competition. The thing that I'm encouraged about is the number of people that we have out here competing for positions and the way guys are pushing each other to get better. Hopefully we can continue to stay healthy and keep getting better each practice."
Additionally, Edsall announced that the Hard Hat of the Day winners for Sunday's scrimmage were Larry Taylor and Darius Butler.
UConn returns to practice on Wednesday afternoon.
